Destiny (Xbox One) Part 1

Note: Although played on Xbox One, this game is available for other consoles. This review is of the game without expansion packs. I had to split this post into two posts because of the sheer length, it would have been almost two thousand words long! 

Admit it. The first person shooter genre is taking over the videogame industry. That’s why I couldn’t help playing one. Destiny is a good example of a great game, but with a lot of potential that was not realized.

Destiny’s plot is not very original at the start. It’s plot is almost exactly the same as Mass Affect(1): Humans discovered a thingy on Mars that allowed them to travel through space easily and led humans into a new Golden Age. Here’s when the plot becomes different: A mysterious thing called the Darkness came and stopped the Golden Age. And that’s basically all the backstory the game gives you, along with some basic information. The game comes up with a crummy excuse, as one of your companions tells you that you are going to see a lot of things you won’t understand. A lot of times, the game sends you on a mission to this amazing place, where you do something cool, but leaves you wondering: What happened to this place? What did humans do here? Why are these enemies here? Who are those enemies? etc. Destiny just doesn’t tell you. Although background story is not Destiny’s strong point, most of Destiny’s story related activities are very fun.

Destiny is all about collecting armor, weapons and experience. Without weapons you won’t kill anything. Without armor you’ll die instantly. And without experience you won’t be able to do anything.

When you start the game, you select from three classes. Choose carefully, you can’t change your class once you choose it. There are three classes: Hunter, Titan, and Warlock. Hunters are the agile, attack oriented class. Each class has two subclasses(three with the purchase of an expansion pack), each with their own upgrades, super ability, special melee attack, and upgrades. The super ability is an ability that charges up over time, although doing various actions charge it up faster. A special melee attack is a melee attack that charges up over time, and is often more powerful that a class’s regular melee attack. For a Hunter, the subclasses available are Gunslinger and Bladedancer. The Gunslinger subclass is all about ranged attacks, and the Bladedancer is all about stealth and using it to take down foes. Titans are the tanks, slow and powerful. Their two subclasses are Striker and Defender. Striker is all about close quarters combat, and Defender is all about defense. The last, but not least, class is Warlock. Warlocks are the ones that heal the quickest, and basically use magic. Their subclasses are Voidwalker and Sunsinger. Voidwalker has a lot of attack, but not a ton of defense. Sunsinger is all about boosting the effectiveness of your abilities.

Weapons are divided into different rarities. The first is Commons, which are very simple and have no upgrades. Then there’s Uncommons, which have upgrades that you can get by using the common in-game currency, glimmer, to upgrade, as well as weapon parts obtained by purchasing armor shards in shops or dismantling a weapon when it is highlighted in your inventory. Weapon upgrades can include changing the scope on the weapon, changing the weapon’s stats, or adding to the amount of damage the weapon can do. The next one is rare, which has more upgrades and damage than Uncommons. After that there’s Legendaries and then Exotics. Both Legendaries and Exotics have an option to consume a more powerful weapon of the same category to increase their attack, although weapons that are Year One (in other words, old) do not have this upgrade and instead have an upgrade that increases the attack by a lot. Exotics and Legendaries usually have good combinations of abilities, and Exotics usually have at least one unique perk. Exotics are special, and you can only equip one exotic weapon, and one exotic armor piece, although certain exotic items have a stat that says that you can equip another exotic.

Weapons are put into three different slots in your inventory: Primary weapons, Special weapons, and Heavy weapons. Primary weapons are, well, your primary weapon. You usually have lots of ammo for it and can easily find more. Weapons that fit into your primary slot are: Hand Cannons, which are slow but powerful pistols, Scout Rifles, which is really just a rifle all in all, Auto Rifles, which are full auto machine guns, and Pulse Rifles, a combination of Auto Rifles and Scout Rifles that fire in three round bursts.

The Special weapons are the weapons that you use next to your Primary weapon. Special weapons have less ammo than Primary weapons. The options for your special weapon are: Shotguns, which are slow loading close range fury, Sniper rifles, which are amazing for getting head shots while aiming down a scope, but not much else, Fusion rifles, which fire longer range shotgun-like attacks but they have to charge before firing. There’s also Sidearms, which are small semi-automatic pistols that are basically a second primary weapon with less ammo.

Then there’s Heavy weapons. Unlike Primary and Special weapons, you do not unlock Heavy weapons at the start of the game. Heavy weapons are destructive weapons of brute force. Heavy ammo is the scarcest of all. Some Heavy weapons that you could use are: Machine Guns, which could be slow but powerful or rapid-fire-quick-death. There are also Rocket Launchers (a first person shooter — or any shooter — wouldn’t be complete without one), which are, rocket-propelled death. There are also Swords, which for some reason use ammo (go figure), which perform fancy melee kills, and can also block incoming attacks.

Armor in Destiny is basically the same as always. You equip a helmet, chest armor, gauntlets, and boots on your armor screen, but depending on the class that you select you also have special class armor. Hunter class players use cloaks, Titan class players use marks, which are basically decorative pieces of cloth, and Warlock class players use Bonds, which are armbands worn on the upper left arm.

FIND PART TWO OF THIS POST HERE

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